(Penang, Sunday): The protracted delay in the swearing-in of Saifuddin Nasution Ismail as the new Lunas State Assemblyman when the Kedah State Assembly is in session is a disgrace and another blot on the Election Commission’s impartiality and professionalism - which must not only be fair but seen to be fair.
Kedah/Perlis Election Commission Officer Abdul Hamid Ali was reported as saying in Alor Star yesterday that the official notice informing the Kedah State Assembly Speaker about Saifuddin’s election would only be dispatched yesterday and that the speaker could only call the winner of the by-election to the Kedah State Assembly after receiving official notice.
This is totally unacceptable and untenable. Nobody has any doubt that if the Barisan Nasional candidate S. Anthonysamy had been elected Lunas State Assemblyman on Wednesday, November 29, 2000, all stops would have been removed to enable him to be sworn in as the new assemblyman in the Kedah State Assembly which was in session the next day.
Why couldn’t this be done in the case of Saifuddin so that he could be sworn in as the new State Assemblyman in the Kedah State Assembly on November 30 and to immediately take his seat and play his role in the current Kedah State Assembly session?
In the era of information technology, where information travels
at the speed of light, there can be no excuse and justification for the
delay in the swearing-in of Saifuddin Nasution as new State Assemblyman
to enable him to take his seat in the Kedah State Assembly the very next
day, especially as the Election Commission must be aware that the Kedah
State Assembly was in session.
(3/12/2000)